• Dollar Strength: Dollar-priced commodities, like gold, will react inversely to movement in the value of the dollar. Therefore, as the dollar began to pick up steam this week (thanks to some measure of order coming back to the financial markets due to the fed and treasury's recent actions), things priced in dollars - such as oil and gold - got hit hard.
  
  
• De-leveraging: Hedge funds and large investors will not be able to use the same amount of leverage (aka margin, aka debt) to finance their investments, since the brokers (the lenders) have become more conservative in order to protect their own capital. Therefore, hedge funds are booking profits in commodities like gold, in order to shore up their capital reserves since whereas before they may have been able to borrow $10 to $1, now they'll only be able to borrow $5 to $1 (not an exact example, but a general example of the reduced amount of margin debt investors will be able to use from their brokers going forward).
  
  
• Profit Taking: Gold and other commodities have had a stellar run over the last many months. No shame in taking a profit, especially as gold hit the psychologically imperative $1000-mark. A lot of people were in on gold from $600 - $800, so taking some of their investment off of the table in order to secure their gains is the prudent move to make.

Reason for deletion: n/a

Reason for deletion: That's a secret.